Continuing Refit Progress

We have received another set of photos showing the progress of work on Zonder Zorg. The salon side windows are in, though nothing has yet been done with reworking the aft window nor the steps.

The interior sheathing has been installed above the kick of the side deck, and it is nearing completion on the lower faces.

Looking forward, we see that the portlights have been boxed-in.

The new Fischer-Panda generator has arrived and is being unpacked and readied for installation. It is one of the new Hybrid Power models and it is rated at 6000 Watts DC. It is designed to be interlinked with battery bank, inverter and shore power through intelligent controls so that the most efficient power source, or combination of sources, is used to meet changing power needs. Most of the time the smaller amounts of 240V power will come from the batteries through the inverter. The battery levels are automatically monitored and recharged from shore power, or when not connected, then automatically by the generator. By intelligently monitoring the battery bank, the generator’s operating time is significantly reduced, reportedly by more than 70%. In reading through the manual, I see there is an available easy override of the automatic system.

To celebrate the progress on Zonder Zorg, we continued to draw down the cellar. As a desert after dinner last evening, we started into a bin of half bottles of 1976 Karl Joh. Molitor Hattenheimer Wisselbrunnen Riesling Beerenauslese.

The cork had just made it through its three dozen years of use, the wine having permeated to within a few millimetres of the end. It was seized in the neck, and needed a push inwards to get it moving, and even with slow, gentle extraction with a Screwpull, the cork was so mushy that the bottom half centimetre separated and threatened to remain in the neck. Fortunately, I had anticipated this, and managed to keep it all on the screw, without a crumb in the wine.

After the drama of drawing the cork, we were rewarded with a wine of light golden colour with very slight paleness at the edge; truly remarkably bright for its age. It had a subdued honeyed nose with hints of botrytis and smoke and aromas of butter, figs and apricots. In the mouth it was delicate and slightly oily, with flavours of buttery caramel and apricots, very clean and well balanced with a lingering finish of dried fruits and hints of spice. It was a remarkably vigorous wine, still rather fresh after more than three dozen years. Delightfully, there are more of these in the bin.